What started out as John Stockton Day ended up as Mo Williams Day in Utah. Williams' 26-foot bomb gave the Jazz their most significant win of the 2012-'13 season — a thrilling 99-96 win over the Spurs.

The Spurs took an early 10-point lead thanks in large part to the play of Tim Duncan, who finished with 22 points and 21 rebounds.

Hayward (19 points, six assists) gave the Jazz another boost off the bench late in the first quarter and into the second, as Utah stormed into the locker room ahead 53-44 at halftime.

San Antonio's subs sparked a momentum shift after Patty Mills drained a 3-pointer and Tiago Splitter dunked to tie it late in the third quarter. The Spurs continued that surge, eventually going up 93-85 on a Boris Diaw trey with 4:09 left.

Corbin said his message to the Jazz at that time was, "Keep fighting. Keep fighting. It’s a long ballgame — a lot of time left in the game. We've got to keep fighting."

That's precisely what the Jazz did.

Beginning with a Hayward 3, the Jazz outscored the Spurs by 11 points in the final 3:48.

"This is a tough club. This is what we've worked for and these are the moments you have to grow in," Corbin said. "It's a great, great job on the defensive end just making them work hard for everything they got.

"We pushed the ball down and got some opportunities at the basket and got some transition baskets there at the end," Corbin continued. "We really did a good job of executing down the stretch on the offensive end."

San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich was quite irritated after the loss, which dropped the previous NBA-leading Spurs to 18-5 overall and 11-3 on the road. The Jazz improved to 13-10 and 9-1 at ESA.

"That's a huge defensive error. What do you think a guy is going to do with two seconds on the clock? You make him drive," Popovich said. "You don't step back on Mo Williams. That's why he (Danny Green) was on him, so we didn't have a small guy like Tony (Parker). We put a big guy on him for that one reason, to get up into him and he backed off. Huge defensive error that cost us the game."

On Mo Williams Night in Utah, the Jazz will gladly take it.

NOTES: Derrick Favors returned from his five-game absence from plantar fasciitis. He played 12 minutes, scoring six points with two rebounds. The Spurs had won five games in a row. Utah improved to 3-0 when Al Jefferson and Millsap each score 20 points in the same game. Big Al had 21 points, including a sweet steal-and-slam in the final two minutes.

Jody is a sports writer who covers the Utah Jazz for the Deseret News (yeah, rough life). He also writes about his fitness/health journey and triathlon exploits in his "Losing It!" column. He has been with the paper since more ..